Sunday, June 14, 2015

HUDUD LAW, AGAIN!

Some
Muslims pride themselves for upholding what is called the hudud punishments. Do
they really know what they are talking about? They think it is God-ordained
law. Are they right? They should remember the lessons of history. Did the
Jewish Prophet Moses bring the religion ofwhat is now known as Judaism? The answer is: No. Did Prophet Jesus, also
a Jew,bring the religion of what is now
known as Christianity? Again the answer is: No. Did Prophet Muhammad, an Arab,
bring the religion of Sunnism and Shi’ism? Again the answer is: No.

Human
history is littered with errors that came to be accepted later as
"facts". We are not talking of small errors. We are talking of big
ones. That explains the rise and fall of nations. One author has described this
historical evolution as "recurring, multilinear, yet ascending." That
means on the whole we are progressing, but the line of progress is not ascending
linear, but multilinear, sometimes ascending, sometimes descending.

Let
me cite just one authority, Prof. Mohammad Hashim Kamali. This paragraph is
taken from his book, Punishment in
Islamic Law: An Inquiry into the Hudud Bill in Kelantan (Kuala Lumpur:
2000) is very telling: “When we compare the Quranic usage of hadd (in the sense of limit) with the
use of this term in fiqh, we notice
that a basic development has taken place, which is that the term hadd has been reserved to signify a
fixed and unchallengeable punishment that is laid down in the Quran or Sunnah.
The concept of the ‘separating or preventing limit’ of the Quran is thereby
replaced by the idea of fixed punishment.” (p. 46)

There
you have another example of a major error made by great scholars. That is
precisely why the Quran warns us of idolizing leaders or scholars. We could be
kind if we choose to pardon them by saying that it was their understanding, or
their ijtihad, which must be reviewed
by the next generation.

The
term hududu’l-Lah (God’s boundaries)
occurs in the Quran 14 times, none of which refer to fixed punishments, as
understood by some Muslim jurists. One scholar opioned that, “The
unchangeability of the hadd
punishement is supported by the interpretation of the Quranic verse: ‘These are
the limits of Allah. Do not transgress them.’” (2: 229) The verse does not
actually mean what he says it means.

Let
us take some of the so-called hudud punishments. Cutting of the head for
apostasy, when the Quran advocates complete freedom of belief, some 1,400 years
ahead of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; stoning for adultery,
cutting of the hand for theft are three of the six or seven of the so-called
fixed punishments propounded by Muslim jurists.Take note these run counter to the fundamental teachings of the Quran.

Take
note also that the divine order to our courts is to judge among people with
justice. (See Quran, 4: 58) Surely God Who decrees upon Himself mercy (Quran, 6:
12) cannot enact such archaic and barbarous laws.

The
term ‘hudud’ul-Lah’, meaning the boundaries of God, simply means in every
action there is a boundary that one should not overpass. Take the case of
eating: one must eat to survive, but he must not overeat. In between there is a
boundary set by God that he should not cross. As in the case of eating, so in
all cases of human activities. It is sometime called ‘The Golden Mean’, the
middle path.

See
how even great scholars have made mistakes! That is precisely the reason why
God warns us of idolizing leaders. It is incumbent upon succeeding generations
to re-evaluate the legacies they inherit from the older generations.

It
is to be remembered that Muslim jurists of the four schools differ much in
their views. We need not go into them. We should take note that these
punishments are taken from the Torah.They
crept into the so-called sunnah/hadith, or Prophetic traditions, i.e. traditions
ascribed to Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad’s name is so great among Muslims that
anything said to originate from him is sacrosanct.

We should also note that the Quran
has two dimensions, the historically-bound, and the universal. The
historically-bound will be surpassed when the historical context no longerprevails. They will pass over into the
universal. The two universal principles are: equal punishment, and merciful
punishment. The first means punishment equalling the crime, and the second
means lightening the punishment, up to and including pardon. We can see that
the two universal principles have been imbibed into all modern civilized
societies.

Take not that Brunei has last year
declared that it would implement Hudud punishments, with the exception,
according to reports, that Brunei royalty is exempt from them.

The
final and unchallengeable proof that there is no such thing as the hudud fixed
punishments is that they are nowhere mentioned in the Medina Charter
promulgated by Prophet Muhammad himself when he migrated to Medina.

About Me

(About Kassim Ahmad
By: M. Bakri Musa)
Kassim Ahmad is Malaysia's foremost thinker and philosopher. He grabbed national headlines in the 1950s with his dissertation on the characters of Hang Tuah (Perwatakan Hang Tuah), the Malay literary classic. In it he challenged the traditional interpretation and made the hitherto hero Hang Tuah as nothing more than a palace hack, and elevated the anti-hero Hang Jebat as the true hero, willing to kill even the sultan in defence of honor and principles.
Kassim was jailed for nearly five years under the ISA for daring to express openly his political views, an experience which he recounted in his book, Universiti Kedua (Second University).
Kassim again shook the Malay world with his "Hadith: A Re-Examination" in which he challenges the infallibility of the purported words of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.
Except for an honorary doctorate in Letters conferred by the National University of Malaysia, the country has not seen fit to honor this great public intellectual.
June 2005